It looks like a big flashlight â€” but it's really a nonlethal weapon designed to make you sick.

Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., of Torrance, Calif., has been granted a contract by the Department of Homeland Security to develop what it calls the "LED Incapacitator," according to a DHS online newsletter.

Phase 1 of the contract â€” creating a working prototype â€” has already been completed, and Phase 2 will begin this fall as researchers at Penn State's Institute of Nonlethal Defense Technology put the puke-saber through its paces.

"Phase 3 will be our shrink phase," Lieberman said, admitting that the prototype, 15 inches long with a 4-inch lens, is too large and heavy to be comfortably carried on a belt.

DHS hopes to equip police, Border Patrol agents and National Guardsmen with the barf-beamers by 2010.